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Badland

Do you remember the Domestic Violence PSA - Coalition Against Battered Women: "It rarely stops" from Y&R in 2010? Yeah it was a bit like that Macy Grey video from the 90s, where the bruises appeared and vanished from her face, but here our abused heroine wasn't singing about the past. She was busy covering each mark, cut and brusies with makeup, while new ones kept appearing, which made the point of the ad : "It rarely stops".

There's a new ad out, where the Delite-o-magic vending machine challenges people to press the button 100 times, bow down and kneel before it, jump on one leg and dance like a maniac, just to get a free pack of Delites. Forget that "How far will people go for the taste of Fantastic Delites?" sounds a lot like "What would you do for a Klondyke bar" for a second, and forget that it would take five hours to push the button five-thousand times, lets look at the vending machine part of this idea shall we?

Back in 1999, there was - according to all rumors - quite the dramatic pitch for the überhot account of Adidas. W+K Amsterdam was involved, and from the ashes of that pitch was born a brand new agency: 180. Would they show off good once they showed some work? Yes, they would. This Adidas ad blew most people away back then, and was ripped off a few times (some Dutch bank copy was in an early Badlander here). I personally applauded it for being my go-to whenever I needed to show a client that YES you do not to speak the VO when it's written on the screen already, gosh darnit.

I feel for my old co-workers at Oriflame for being slapped with this ad-bannage. First off, Oriflame is a bit like Avon in that there are troops of independent salespeople, and they are all armed with the all powerful catalogue. This catalogue is distributed to 38 different countries and 3.5 million consultants.
There's a silly amount of meetings discussing every detail of a layout where top execs from several different countries will offer their invaluable input such as "we need more glamour, can you print glitter?" and "She needs to smile more" followed by "No, smiles don't sell in my country" followed by "In my country she needs to smile like Mona Lisa" and so on.
Provided you haven't turned skitzo during one of these many meetings you will soon enough (read: six months) have a layout that has turned into a mishmash of details and additions much like that "if microsoft designed Apple packaging" video. Despite all that, you manage to produce something... And then the Swedish Reklamombudsman bans it because the girls looks like a ballerina-girl and the boy looks like a tool-loving boy.. It's enough to drive an art director to drinking the kid-bodywash advertised.

Newsweek is getting a lot of press for the cover "The first gay president", illustrated by Obama wearing a rainbow (neon?) halo above his head. He is getting this title for his "bullshit gay marriage announcement" as Gawker put it. As I recall in September last year Barack Obama was the first Jewish president, as depicted on the cover on New York Magazine, so I'm only here to point out the Badlander-like issue. If I see Barack Obama as the first woman president on a magazine cover near you soon, I'll personally slap the creative who designed that cover with a wet trout. I bet Obama will be wearing lipstick too.

Here's an update on those popchips ads we posted earlier this week. Gawker pondered if "racism sells?", since Asthon Kutcher put on a brownface when he played "Raj the Bollywood producer" in the popchips world wide lovers campaign. After Gawker wrote about it, so did Anil Dash and the ad has now been pulled off the intarwebs by the Popchips company. Quoting Gawker here who seem to have the same issue I have with these ads, they just plain ain't funny.

The ‘Strip for Likes’ campaign, live as of today, re-launches Amsterdam’s Facebook page for the American modis fashion brand- Stϋssy. The campaign has been created by Arnold Amsterdam, the new creative agency in town.
Sean Thompson, Head of Creativity, Arnold Amsterdam says: ‘As a contemporary brand you need to be wherever your fans live, shop or play. Facebook plays an integral part of their lives, Stϋssy AMS’ Facebook is therefore an important platform to engage with fans inform them or just share the fun.’
‘Like to see less, and share to undress’

I don't even.... I mean, Powerthirst was a viral skit, which later became a viral ad for a film, and now has been ripped as a real ad for mineral water? Seriously? Are our collective memories so short now that we don't remember 2007? Oh. It was the drugs. Sure. Blame the drugs.

The ASA calls the above campaign amateurish and we noted that the majority of clothing items featured in the ads were outer garments, and considered that the nature of the women’s poses meant that their breasts and buttocks were the focal points of the images rather than the products. We considered that the nudity was therefore gratuitous.